Times Are Getting Hard
by TamariChan
Summary: They forgot to mention that this will never be over. Another spy!fic, with implications of assault or rape/possible incest. Faleron/Lianne, written for GLO and JGNDNR.


**Team:** PotS/DL  
**Prompt: **to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten  
**Word Count:** 1502  
**Notes:** Depending on how you interpret this, it could deserve an M rating or just a T. So, just keep a clean mind when reading, and you'll be fine.

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Tortall belong to Tamora Pierce. Written for the Goldenlake Olympics.**

-:-

The civil war ends.

When she hears, she flies to her door and out into the hall, one hand still clinging to the doorframe. She can go home, she is done – and yet…

And months pass, slipping through her fingers like golden sand, and she reminds herself every day that she can go home now. She can go home, home, home.

(she can _never _go home)

She is nineteen now. On her birthday, she slips out of her rooms, gliding through halls and gardens, and lurks in the back of the memorial service.

"We deeply regret the loss of Princess Lianne, and we miss her so," the king says to those assembled, his eyes glittering, but a king does not cry.

When Prince Roald begins to speak, she leaves the service to go to the gardens. They are empty, for once, and she is accompanied only by her shadow and a newly erected statue.

She steps closer and traces the sapphire enamel on the eye of the girl-statue – an eye with much more knowledge, more wisdom, than ever Lianne of Conte had.

But then, perhaps she sees this only because she knows.

(she knows, knows, _knows_)

She still meets men in her rooms. She supposes it's habit, considering the most frequent visitor is young Faleron of King's Reach. He is older than she is, but also younger. She can't explain, not without giving all her secrets away.

She tells him one night about her fear of going home. He does not understand, not really, but fear is universal. He tells her about spidrens. She understands.

He calls her Delilah. And she is. Though truthfully, when she is with him, she feels like herself.

He does not know her secrets, but lies are starting to blur into truth.

(she is starting to _break_)

She still goes to the balls, to keep up appearances that don't need to be kept any longer.

The war is over, she thinks, but nothing is really over. When she sleeps alone she feels the hands again, sees the gleam of teeth, hears the harsh sound of too familiar laughter. She wakes with the bruises of true dreams.  
_  
"Let's find out if you can bleed, like a noble, like a person, little Tirragen-"_

She is there at all events, dancing and smiling and laughing hollowly, with the shine of the dying. They whisper that maybe she is. But what loss would it be, really? She is nothing.

(she _used_ to be something)

She sometimes wonders if anyone has guessed. She doesn't see how, not with her glamour charm- and even without one, who would connect her to Delilah of Tirragen, the court slut?

Delilah does not care if anyone knows anything. Delilah is free-spirited and seductive and absolutely carefree. Delilah is whole, unbroken, and flawlessly flawless.

Delilah has always been invincible.

(she is _not_ Delilah)

She lies in bed at night, unable to sleep. Faleron is usually with her, snuggled against her side with an arm around her. He treats her like she is worth something. Once he tells her that she is beautiful.

"Yes," she wants to say, "Delilah is- but I am not."

She doesn't say it, even though there is no longer a reason to keep any secrets.

She tells herself the war is over. She tells herself she can go home. It's time to go home.

But she doesn't go home.

(she can _never_ go home)

They told her, long long long ago, at the very start, what she was up against. But she was weaker then, and much too self-confident.

"You understand," they had said, "it's not just danger that makes this job undesirable – even impossible, some say. It's dangerous, but death is not what should scare you."

"Then what should?" she had said, brashly, bravely, like the girl of sixteen she was.

"Everything," they had answered.

She had scoffed.

(but everything _does,_ now)

She returns often to kneel at the feet of the statue in the gardens. She doesn't pray to it, of course, but sometimes she asks it questions, in a whisper or simply in her head.

Like, "What were you thinking?" and "Should I go home?" and "Please save me," which isn't really a question.

The one she asks most often is the one that she thinks she knows how to answer.

"Was it all worth it?"

(she wishes she _didn't_ know the answer)

He leers at her, and it makes her sick.

She can stand the gazes of the others, yes, yes, they were there but they are nothing. Their faces bring back memories of that night, but his face is the worst.

It is the worst because the picture of that night is juxtaposed with a smile, a song, a day climbing trees, a protective arm around her in a nursery.

_"Please, oh please, just stop, don't touch me, please, stop, let me tell you my name, please, oh please, Liam, let me tell you, the things I could tell you…!"_

She takes a moment and closes her eyes, thinking of the war, the cause, the sixteen-year-old girl who was so eager to help.

(the public has one thing right- that girl is _dead_)

Faleron lies beside her and whispers, "Delilah, are you alright?"

And the name winds around her head like a storm wailing around a castle- "Delilah, Delilah, Delilah."

And all she can think is that she can go home now.

She sits up in bed. The darkness presses against her eyelashes and her throat and she can't breathe, and this stupid pregnancy charm is choking her.

Later, she won't be sure whether or not she remembered that the glamour charm was tied into the necklace.

Faleron doesn't notice anything – it's dark, so dark, and they're alone.

(she's _so_ alone)

She wakes to find herself alone. This is nothing unusual, since Faleron leaves before dawn to go to the practice courts. She rises and decides to save bathing for after breakfast – and this is her mistake.

Walking the passageways, she feels tingle after tingle shoot up her spine. She doesn't know what's happening, since this is what she does every day. Her fingers catch the wall on her right and race each other to the mess hall.

She can go home, home, home, she thinks.

Maybe she's finally ready, maybe it's finally time, even past time, and yet…

The mess hall is alive with whispers when she enters.

Must be some gossip, she thinks.

(she is so _stupid_)

It isn't until after she eats, that day, that someone approaches her.

It's some knight, and he's nervous. "Princess Vania," he says, and she looks up from her breakfast.

He seems to realize that Princess Vania has hazel eyes, not blue, at the same time she realizes she is not wearing her charm.

They both scream.

She scrambles to her feet and starts to run.

(she can_ never_ go home)

Because the gods hate her, she runs into Faleron when she's almost out, almost free, almost done.

He doesn't recognize her, of course.

"Pardon me, Princess V…?" he trails off, looking into her eyes.

Really, it's now or never, and so the words chase each other off her tongue without a conscious thought. "Lianne-" she says, "but usually I'm Delilah. Delilah of Tirragen."

And she watches the recognition spark and fade to realization that gives way to anguish. No, no time, there are shouts behind her and she has to be on her way.

"I love you," she says quickly, rashly, "Thank you – thank you, for everything, and I will come back for you."

He doesn't have a chance to speak before she's running out through the gardens.

(she can't stop_ now_)

Despite the panic and the pain that engulfs her, consumes her, she skids to a stop in front of her statue. The gardens aren't empty but Delilah doesn't care. Delilah is invincible, remember?

"Please!" This time she says it aloud, shrieks it even.

"Don't you know, you have to know, was it worth it? Was _I_ worth it, damnit, was winning worth becoming nothing? You know! You know!"

She's sobbing now, for the first time since that day she said_ "I can do it"_, and she sinks to the grass beside the statue's feet.

And then there are hands on her, she doesn't know whose, and there are words being said, comforting or threatening, who knows, but all she can think is that the war is over now.

She is over now.

"Liam," she says brokenly, "I told you. Why didn't you listen to me? You never listen to me."

The person lifts her and oh look, it's Roald, not Liam, and he's crying- he is not a king yet.

"Lianne," he says.

She shakes her head with the brittleness of someone both absolutely certain and totally unconvinced. "No, no," she says. "I'm nothing."

"You're okay now," he says, because he doesn't understand. "You're home now, you're safe."

(he doesn't understand that she can_ never _go home)


End file.
